Highlights
36%
improvement in call compliance scores
100%
call QA coverage
Overview
RIA HEALTH is an online alcohol treatment program that uses anti-craving medication, Blood Alcohol Concentration monitoring and health coaching to help its patients cut back or quit drinking. Ria Health offers telehealth via Zoom Workplace, making the program ideal for those unable to commit to in-person treatment or who feel traditional Alcoholics Anonymous groups or rehab programs aren’t the right fit for them. The flexibility and convenience of online treatment via Zoom undoubtedly makes it easier for those in need to get help.
That said, Ria Health also faces unique challenges as an online-only treatment program. The transient nature of telehealth means that as easy as it is to connect with a patient, it’s just as easy for that patient to abandon treatment. Without the right approach and care standards, patients may disengage, potentially leading them to fall deeper into addiction or even lose their lives.
As such, Ria Health focuses heavily on call quality and driving a positive patient experience. Clear guidance on best practices, quality training and rigorous quality assurance (QA) standards are key to its success as both a business and a care provider. But assessing call quality is difficult, and Ria Health’s managers have historically been unable to quantify or track call quality at scale.
To tackle this problem, Ria Health’s leadership team turned to Verbal to optimize its clinical operations and transform its treatment program with live conversation intelligence. Verbal integrated seamlessly with Ria Health’s existing Zoom workflow, and this collaboration has allowed Ria Health to conduct QA on 100% of calls, improve staff training and feedback, and boost call compliance by 36% in just four months.
Client
Ria Health
Scope
11 health coaches, 5 months
Key features
- Automated QA scoring on 100% of calls
- Responsive checklists tailored to team’s best practices
- Real-time feedback and training for coaches
- Comprehensive performance reporting for managers
New frameworks for QA
To enhance Ria Health’s QA program and ensure every call met the organization’s quality and compliance standards, Verbal built a real-time call quality checklist and quality assurance (QA) scoring model based on Ria Health’s best practices.
This gave Ria Health’s leadership team a clear framework through which QA standards could be clarified for the team and call quality assessed.
“We wanted to find a way to structure the visits [more concretely],” says Ria Health’s Senior Director of Clinical Operations, Sonja Ranck, MSN, RN, FACHE.
Powered by AI, the Verbal checklist offers Ria Health’s health coaches a responsive, step-by-step guide to successful patient conversations, including key topics to cover and steps required for compliance and privacy.
Verbal analyzes 100% of calls in real time and gives coaches feedback on next steps while highlighting best practices they may have missed. This ensures coaches are never unsure about best practices and helps them better connect with patients.
Automated QA scoring also allows managers to assess team performance and call quality at scale. Before Verbal, Ria Health managers could only conduct QA on a small sample of calls. Now, managers can get a clear sense of call quality on 100% of interactions
”From a management perspective, it's really helped me get a metric. We didn't quite have something that was easily referenced.
Kerri Reyes, MPH, LCDC, ICAADCCoaching Team Manager, Ria Health
A tangible boost to call quality
Over the course of its first five months as part of the Ria Health coaching workflow, Verbal has driven a steady, continuous improvement in call quality and compliance scores.
At the end of their first month using Verbal, the Ria Health team boasted an average QA score of 70% — in other words, the average call showed 70% adherence to best practices. While this showed that Ria Health coaches stuck to best practices the vast majority of the time, there was still clear room for improvement.
Over just four months, Verbal helped the Ria Health team boost those scores to 95% – a relative percentage increase of 36%.
Average Adherence Score in Month 1
Average Adherence Score in Month 5
Enhanced training and feedback
Along with allowing Ria Health managers to easily quantify and track call quality at scale, Verbal has helped the team improve its onboarding process for new hires and enhance ongoing coach training.
With its real-time guidance and QA scoring, Verbal can give new hires a clear path to follow, a quality score to aim for and reminders on potential areas for improvement. Instead of just sitting through videos or reading manuals, new coaches can learn by doing and get instant feedback on their performance.
“As a training tool, it’s phenomenal,” says Reyes. “We [hired] three new coaches since March and they are loving Verbal.”
Ranck agrees, noting how Verbal’s checklist and QA scoring can not only teach new hires the steps they need to follow, but also help them put those steps into practice. In other words, Verbal helps Ria Health’s coaches get their reps in.
“New [staff] coming on have really appreciated having that checklist,” says Ranck. “You’re developing muscle memory in this new role.”
Verbal has also driven more comprehensive, helpful performance reviews, allowing managers to give coaches specific, actionable feedback based on all of their interactions, not just a small sample.
Ria Health has even started to incorporate their coaches’ Verbal scores into weekly one-on-ones with team leads. This helps them monitor adherence on both an individual and team level, identify top performers and offer additional coaching to staff where needed.
“Using those analytics helps me determine the next course of action to better support the coaches, so they can better support the patients,” says Ranck.
Seamless Zoom integration
Ria Health uses Zoom Workplace for its telehealth encounters, and it was important that the Verbal AI be able to analyze call audio without disrupting the team’s existing workflows.
Thanks to the Zoom app marketplace, Ria Health users need only add the Verbal meeting app to its Zoom account and the AI can automatically capture and analyze call audio via Zoom, with no need for complex integrations with communication providers.
Verbal is also HIPAA compliant and on track for HITRUST certification, which boasts some of the most comprehensive security frameworks in the healthcare industry and ensures patient data is protected with the highest standards of privacy.
”“It's a small tweak. But it can make such a huge difference.”
Sonja Ranck, MSN, RN, FACHESenior Director, Clinical Operations
Changing lives: Ria Health’s North Star
Verbal’s AI-powered QA scoring and call analytics have offered Ria Health leadership a clear framework for tracking and measuring call quality. Meanwhile, Ria Health coaches are getting the feedback and support they need to do their best work.
Looking ahead, Ria Health plans to continue leveraging Verbal’s capabilities to further refine their coaching practices and achieve even greater results.
“Not a week goes by that I don’t get comments like, ‘You guys have changed my life. You got me back on track,’” says Ranck.
And with the help of Verbal, Ria Health coaches are more confident than ever in their ability to make a difference.
